#it's free real estate! stuffs them both in a bag and carries them away never to be seen or heard from again

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

every now and then I just spontaneously remember that Arkk exists and that he was coded as a member of Scarlet's Army for reasons left entirely unexplained and I just go. huh.

#my posts #GW2 #Guild Wars 2 #arkk fascinates me for many many reasons tbh #aside from him being another entertaining antagonist with funny dialogue he's just. interesting. #there's an inherent tragedy to characters that are doomed by the narrative not just once but eternally #it's not enough that he can never win. he can also never stop trying and failing endlessly forever. he hasn't just lost he is Always Losing #every time he thinks it's the first time but the truth is he's already been dead in all the ways that matter for a long long time. #he's a ghost that will never find peace because his grave is a recording that will replay continuously until the universe itself unravels. #man. his plot arc is short but surprisingly compelling for what it is. i still think about it a lot tbh #anyway hcing that he knew Scarlet/Ceara at some point and that's why he's in her 'army' for coding purposes #you would've thought they'd make him like. inquest. but nope they did that and I still wonder what the thinking was tbh #timeline-wise it'd probably make the most sense if he was already in the Inquest building up a debt by the time she joined there #with his departure into the Mists most likely taking place sometime shortly after her expulsion from Rata Sum #i need to think about him and Dessa more tbh (especially since they're both core characters at the Turnabout... haha...) #you thought I was just kidnapping Mai Trin? joke's on YOU I adopt EVERY character that canon leaves in the dumpster #and they didn't do anything with finding the 'real' Dessa or Arkk in SotO so I doubt they ever will. which means... mine now. #it's free real estate! stuffs them both in a bag and carries them away never to be seen or heard from again

[ariadnelives]

Chapter 8 -- The Lie

[Missed earlier chapters? Go catch up here! Otherwise, welcome back! Oh, and make sure to join our discord server! Chapter can also be found @ ao3]

“So where is this guy?” Backflip asked, navigating the shuttle towards the barrier. Just before they reached it, she stopped and waited for an answer.  

“Last I heard,” Sweettalk explained, “he was running a real estate grift. He poses as an exterminator offering a free estimate to gain access to a house. While he's checking a crawlspace or basement, he quietly releases a couple hundred ants and convinces them they need to leave town for a week while the infestation is cleared out. Course, the ants only take about 20 minutes to clear out. While the homeowners are out of town, he changes into a realtor's outfit, slaps an agency sign in the front, and puts a posting online about how a crazy realtor is willing to sell the property as-is for 10% of the market price, an offer too good to question. Some greedy house flipper makes an offer and forks over 20,000 credits for a fake deed. He vanishes and the homeowners come home to the 'new owner' trying to renovate their kitchen. They call the extermination company, they call the real estate agency, find that nobody ever heard of the guy who sold their house, and he walks away with a hefty sum of credits and without a trace.”

“I meant, where is he, like, geographically,” Backflip sighed. “like, not 'what's he up to,' but like, what direction should I be pointing the spaceship.'”

“Oh,” Sweettalk said. “Head towards Mars, he should be deep in Wagoner territory. Cynwyd Newydd.”

There was a brief silence as Backflip set a course and started to maneuver the ship through the barrier. “Not the smartest grift, I mean, what if the people don't agree to leave their house for a week?”

“Then he's only out the cost of an exterminator costume, and a bright yellow blazer, a sign, and a box of ants,” Sweettalk explained. “Most people will probably say no, but he only needs one person to say yes to make a profit.” Ghostrunner smirked.

“What if nobody makes an offer?” Backflip asked, genuinely curious.

“He waits until the homeowners come home and collects a small fee for clearing out the ants. He makes a profit either way, and I'd bet he probably makes a copy of the house key too.”

Backflip looked confused. “Why?”

Ghostrunner piped up, startling everybody, most of whom had never heard her speak before. “To sell, a few months down the road. Some burglar buys it for a thousand credits, then makes ten times that selling the stuff they stole from the house.”

“Sounds like a real charmer.” Backflip said, shrugging. The ship moved clear of the barrier, and began to pick up speed as it coasted towards Mars. “Why exactly are we going to him again?”

“You don't think someone like that could have some expertise in how to get into a secure location?” Sweettalk offered.

“Fair,” Backflip replied, setting the autopilot and standing to face the rest of her squadron, “I just think that—”

Deathsbane's guilt finally got the best of her and she spoke up, in her own voice, cutting off whatever insightful thought Backflip was about to share.

“I'm sorry, you guys, I lied to you.”

“Sasha?!” Backflip's voice broke in surprise.

Sweettalk let out an exasperated groan. “You couldn't have held it in until we were out of sight of the station?”

“I don't like lying!” Sasha sighed apologetically, “We're past the point of no return now, we don't have to keep it up!”

“How did—” Backflip began, “I mean— you look just like her!”

“Fastwing,” Sasha replied, “she made me up to look like this. Aside from me and Sweettalk, she's the only one who knew. I'm so sorry—”

“I knew,” Ghostrunner said as a matter of fact, and popped her bubblegum for effect.

This took both Sasha and Sweettalk aback.

“How?” Sweettalk asked.

“Figured it out somewhere around your little fake spat. The real Spacebreather would've decked her.”

“Why didn't you say something on the station?” Sasha asked.

“Because I knew you before all that nonsense with Weaver,” Ghostrunner explained. Backflip still seemed shocked, mostly at the deception, but partially because she'd never heard Ghostrunner speak this much. “You've always been laid back, relaxed, good under pressure. Now, Pilar won't let you off the ship and you're wound so tight you could eat a lump of coal and poop out a diamond. Once I knew what you were doing, it wasn't a huge leap to figure out why you were doing it. Figured I could help release all this tension by keeping my mouth shut.”

“Wow,” Sasha said.

“We're not mad,” Backflip said, carefully considering her words, “at least, I'm not … I'm just … I don't want to be in trouble, or I would've snuck you out myself, you know?”

“Look,” Sweettalk explained, “that's why we had to trick you. Now, as far as Spacebreather is concerned, the only people who disobeyed her orders are me and Fastwing.”

“And me,” Sasha added dreadfully.

“Well, yeah,” Sweettalk agreed, “but I intend to take all the blame.”

The trip to Mars was not exactly short, but it didn't take very long either. They spent most of the journey composing an apology message to send back to Tripwire and Lefthook and stuffing a small rucksack with 100-credit notes. The security measures around Cynwyd Newydd were downright lax compared to those surrounding New Moyamensing, and their ship was guided through the bio-dome's airlock without so much as an ID check. Sasha slung the bag of credit-notes over her shoulder and the girls disembarked.

The whole town of Cynwyd Newydd was exhausting to look at. Their entire economy was, as far as the girls could tell, driven by overpriced grocery stores which advertised themselves as “ALL NATURAL EARTH-GROWN PRODUCE,” and trendy bars which all strove to be the most quirky and unique establishment on the block while still somehow managing to be effectively indistinguishable from one another.

The stickers plastered on almost every storefront proudly proclaimed “TRITON SECURITY SYSTEMS” in garish yellow letters, followed by a slogan that could frankly only be appealing to the most paranoid of bigots, “KEEPING THE NEIGHBORHOOD OUT.”

Both the businesses and the people seemed to want to walk the line between vintage and cutting-edge. They all had the newest electronic gadgets, kept in expensive cases that were designed to make them look like the electronic gadgets their parents had carried. They wore brand-new, expensive clothing that had been designed specifically to look like they'd inherited them from a deceased grandparent who happened to wear their exact size.

Everyone hated Cynwyd Newydd, including, it seemed, the people who lived there, who all constantly complained about the rich kids from Earth who were moving to the area and making it less cool, without ever realizing that they'd just described themselves. Despite this feeling, they also never managed to empathize with the people who'd grown up there, who now also hated it because it was full of rich kids from Earth who'd moved there on a whim to find themselves while living off seemingly bottomless trust funds, always sending away for imported goods from Earth rather than patronizing the small stores on their block, which usually ended up driving the stores out of business.

Of course, the rich kids saw this as a plus, an open storefront meant they could finally use their parents' money to open that trendy new bar they'd been dreaming of. It would be different from all the other bars on the block, they always thought, and they were always wrong.

It wasn't difficult to find their destination. Sweettalk showed a handful of people a photograph of her contact, and they directed her to a gray concrete building, one which couldn’t possibly look less like the garish yellow signs in every storefront if you had paid it to, with a sign reading “Triton Securities.”  

There were six desks inside the one-room building, and their contact sat at the second closest one to the door. He was twenty years old, white, dark-haired, clean-shaven, wore a pressed white shirt with a pastel green tie and seemed to be perpetually smirking. His nameplate read “PRESCOTT CAIN – SECURITY SPECIALIST.”

He looked up at the four rather rough-looking girls walking towards him, and when he saw Sweettalk, his face broke into a gleeful, almost proud smile.

“Ming! To what do I owe thi—”

He didn't get to finish this thought because Sweettalk punched him in the face so hard he fell out of his chair.

[businessliveme]

How to Never Be Stranded After a Canceled Flight

(Bloomberg) –At Bloomberg Pursuits, we love to travel. And we always want to make sure we’re doing it right. So we’re talking to globe-trotters in all of our luxury fields—food, fashion, cars, real estate—to learn about their high-end hacks, tips, and off-the-wall experiences. These are the Distinguished Travel Hackers.

Jen Rubio is co-founder and chief brand officer of Away. After stints working for Warby Parker and London-based All Saints, she launched Away in February 2016, focusing on hard-shell suitcases with lifetime guarantees. Their candy-colored silhouettes became staples at airports around the world at warp speed. At a recent Series D funding round, Away was valued at $1.4 billion.

The company now produces a range of bags and accessories, including recently introduced carry-on suitcases with built-in front pockets for items like laptops, giving travelers easy access to them.

Read: Cellphones a Flight Danger? Could Be on Some Boeing Jets

Rubio lives between New York and San Francisco, averaging about 200,000 miles a year—at least—in the air. Once a Delta Air Lines loyalist, reaching its Million Miler status, she now uses a variety of carriers. “American Airlines first class is hands-down the best transcon, with great seats and really good food,” she says.

She doesn’t rely on melatonin or Ambien to beat jet lag—this gizmo is much more effective.

I never travel without a small, USB-powered white noise machine from Aurola, whether it’s to drown out a hotel neighbor’s snores through paper-thin walls, or to add some sound texture to the deafening silence of a country retreat. I discovered it when we were first starting Away and I was traveling to China. I was booked in an Airbnb in Hong Kong on a very busy street. I live in Manhattan, so I’m fine with noise, but I could distinctly hear someone’s conversation outside, and I couldn’t stop eavesdropping. But that Airbnb had a white noise machine on the nightstand. I clicked “play” and slept so well that I went online and bought one the next day. It’s become my trigger for sleeping. There’s a Pavlovian quality to it: No matter where in the world I am or what kind of room I’m in, the machine turns on, and my brain instantly relaxes.

Duty-free shopping can save serious cash—if you know what you’re doing.

I’m the queen of duty-free. People think airport shopping is completely accidental, but you can strategize it to save a lot of money. If you’re looking at a pair of Gucci loafers, the difference between buying them in New York and at Gucci at London Heathrow can be $200 to $300. It’s as much as 35% off—insane! They’re not something you need urgently, so you can always wait.

READ: These Secret Ingredients May Be Why Your Restaurant Bill Is So High

I use the Heathrow personal shopping program. You book it ahead of time, and tell them what stores you want to go to and how much time you have. Then the personal shopper meets you after security and takes you from terminal to terminal to get the stuff you need. I like it for Christmas shopping. I only found out about it because I noticed a bunch of Chinese tourists at Heathrow Terminal 3 with someone in an airport uniform. I went up to them and asked them what was going on, and they told me about it.

And this is how you really maximize those duty-free savings.

If you know you’re flying through an airport like Heathrow more than once, get a business card from any of the associates at high-end boutiques like Gucci or Chanel. Those airport boutiques have a limited selection because they don’t have a ton of space, but they can order things from any other boutique to be transferred there and hold it for you. Call or email them, then they will hold it for you and you can buy it—duty-free—the next time you fly from there. I did it when I was going back and forth between London and New York a lot.

Download this one app, and you’ll never be caught off guard by flight delays again.

Flighty is expensive for an app, like $50 per year, but somehow it knows when I’m going to get delayed before they make any announcements. If I board a flight, I might get a notification from Flighty it’s going to be 15 minutes delayed—and then five minutes later, the pilot will say the same thing.

READ: Six Tourist Spots in Saudi Arabia That Will Surprise You

How never to be stranded after a canceled flight.

Remember the Three-Hour Rule: If you’re stuck on the tarmac for three hours, they have to go back to the gate and let everyone off. It will take 30 to 45 minutes to get everyone off, then maybe they’ll let you back on or they might cancel it if the crew times out. There’s uproar when that happens, but if you’re three steps ahead of everyone else, it makes everything much more decent. If you think a flight is going to be canceled, call the airline and ask them to protect you on a seat on a later flight, too. I’ve done that, where I was basically on both flights until one of them got canceled. Or you can go online while you’re sitting in your seat and book a ticket on the next flight as a backup. If your first flight is canceled, you can ask for a refund. And if you don’t need the second seat, you can cancel that for free because you booked it within 24 hours.

Image courtesy: Pixabay

Global Entry has counterparts across the world.

For places you travel to often, check to see if there’s an expedited entry program. Doing that has cut down my time in the immigration line by 90% sometimes. Hong Kong has a program where if you visit more than a certain number of times a year, you can sign up for the Frequent Visitor e-Channel. They actually have automated kiosks for immigration when you arrive and when you depart. They approve you for it, you get a sticker in your passport, and you bypass basically all of the manual checkpoints on arrival and departure.

The best in-flight amenity kit is the one you make yourself.

I’ve become very particular as I travel more. On every business-class flight, there’s an amenity kit, but I wish the products were better. So now I pack my own, full of a bunch of stuff I’ll need in-flight. It means I don’t spend the whole flight getting up, rummaging through my bags, and disturbing everyone. I pack silicone earplugs from Savears. I learned about them when I was sitting next to someone who was a sound technician. He was wearing the same earplugs on the plane that he used backstage at concerts. He said they were perfect, and now I use them for everything. I also pack rinse-free hand wash from Byredo instead of Purell hand sanitizer; it smells really good and is less drying. And I put on Barbara Sturm antipollution serum before flights. Air travel is not great for your skin, so if you can keep it clean and moisturized, you’re good to go.

READ: Scared to Travel to ‘Dangerous’ Places? Don’t Be – Tyler Cowen

She loves this tiny Canadian surf town so much that she just bought a house there.

British Columbia is known for Whistler, but I love Tofino, a tiny surf town on the westernmost coast of Vancouver Island. It’s where my fiance [Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield] proposed to me. It’s hard to get to, but that’s kinda why I like it. Anyone who bothers making the effort to go, they’ll really appreciate it. You fly to Vancouver, and then there’s a scheduled floatplane service [to] Tofino Harbor. Once they started offering that, I bought a house there. The population is probably a couple thousand year-round. The climate is temperate rainforest, so it’s within the same 10 degrees always. There’s a beach, mountains, and it’s become a place for surfers, too. There’s also an amazing farm-to-table, or sea-to-table, foodie culture. I love Wolf in the Fog.

Make friends wherever you go by doing this every time you check into a hotel.

When I land somewhere, I go to the ATM and get money out. Then when I get to the hotel, at check-in I ask them to change around $40 into small bills. When you’re traveling, the ability to tip everyone you encounter when it’s called for, even in nontipping countries, goes such a long way.

The post How to Never Be Stranded After a Canceled Flight appeared first on Businessliveme.com.

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[houstonyouretheproblem]

The Manor, Chapter 1: The Beginning

The Loft was located in the attic of an old house. Currently, the actual house was inhabited by an old couple from Pennsylvania, who were now living in Merino, Colorado for reasons unknown. The house was very large for this couple, so they had redone the entire second level for people who wanted to rent it out. They had even put a door and a grand set of stairs to get onto the second level so whoever was living up there wouldn’t have to come down. The couple wanted reliable, quiet, and organized people to live on the second floor. So obviously they had decided to rent out to three high school boys.

Ryan stood up from where he’d been kneeling on the floor. His joints clicked, more of a feeling than an audible sound, and he groaned quietly as he looked down at his knees. They were red, and they’d bruise. Of course they would. Yet another reason for Cole to call him an old man. Ryan ran a hand through his perfect golden-blond hair, fingers slipping through the soft strands easily. Speaking of Cole, where was he? They had to go meet Evan in about ten minutes, and he wouldn’t appreciate them being late.

“You got dust in your hair, rich boy.” Cole’s low voice sounded like it didn’t belong in Ry’s thoughts. He trained his curious green eyes on his roommate. Cole looked the same as he had earlier that day, minus the school uniform. Black hair, swept back in a smooth motion that stayed tame with the help of some hair product Ry didn’t know about, tattoo peeking out from the sleeve of his jacket. And, instead of the cardigan over a white button-up shirt, Cole was wearing a navy blue wife-beater tank top that exposed his muscular arms, and a pair of low-hanging ripped jeans. Ry hated to admit this to himself, but he wished he had that kind of body. It was nearing the end of spring, and Colorado summers could get hot, so soon both boys would have to fold up their jeans for a while and try to find shorts that didn’t make them look like the men from Bud Light commercials. And Cole would always end up looking better than the other boy would, because he had toned legs that were perpetually tan, unlike Ry’s pale and weak ones.

“Don’t call me that,” Ry said now, heading towards the door of the Loft.

“Even though it’s true?” Cole had the kind of grin more likely to be seen on wolves about to feed than a teenage boy on his way to meet a friend. Ry just rolled his eyes and stepped onto the platform on top of the stairs, waiting until Cole was out of the house to lock the door.

“Is Zack coming?” He asked, even though they both knew the answer.

Cole shrugged and opened the passenger seat of the 1966 Mustang convertible. It was an old car, but very loved by Ryan, despite its quite frankly disgusting color (‘Springtime Yellow’, which Ry called ‘personality’, and Cole called ‘bullshit’). Of course, Ryan never let anyone but himself drive it, so Cole was confined to the passenger seat that had a leak in its window.

They trundled down the small Colorado roads in the car, earning whoops from some of the boys from school. Ryan ignored them, and would have rolled up the roof, except this was a real car, and in order to put the convertible roof up and down, they had to stop at the side of the road, open the trunk, and crank it down. So the two teens just continued to bake in the unforgiving heat of the sun until they got to the art studio.

Outside the familiar small villa sat a group of young artists, facing the picturesque mountains with easels set up or sketchbooks balanced precariously on their knees. The few that didn’t have earbuds in looked up when Cole and Ryan parked, but didn’t even wave in greeting; the boys came here often enough for the artists to know that they weren’t here for them. Cole climbed out of the car and passed behind the small group, eyes roaming over their art, and Ryan followed, though he held himself back from looking. He had very strict privacy rules, and they applied to him and others.

Inside the building, more students sat with easels, this time with a subject in the middle of the room. Leigh Strawser sat on a soft plushy armchair, so detailed it was almost royal, one arm resting on the left handle, the other curved around the backrest. She was beautiful, all pretty white curves and delicate limbs, her blond hair falling around her shoulders in ringlets, her mouth pursed slightly, full, pink lips inviting. It was obvious she had been wearing more before (a flowy white dress pooled on the pristine marble floor underneath the right leg of the small throne), but now she was only wearing a bra, delicate and perfect like the rest of her, and a fur throw, covering her shoulder, stomach and hips. When she looked over to see the newcomers, Ryan remembered why this beautiful girl was single: her eyes were so brown they looked black, and the whites of her eyes were barely-there. It was a side-effect of a genetic flux, but it made her gaze terrifying.

“Leigh?” A young girl asked quietly, and Leigh narrowed her eyes briefly at Cole, who didn’t seem to notice, and refocused her eyes on some imaginary far-away image.

Cole brushed past Ryan and grabbed his shirt, pulling him up the stairs to the living quarters.

The owner of this estate was Robert Gentry, a sculptor and a painter and the small town’s local celebrity. Gentry had retired from the world art stage, and had opened up a small academy for aspiring artists. It was something you did outside of school, or once you had finished school, and it was known to be one of the best places around to learn. And this was where Evan lived.

Gentry only allowed the most talented artists, the pupils in whom he saw the most potential, to live on the estate, and Evan had been living there for three years. It was free board, and free breakfast and dinner, as long as the boarder made at least one completed art piece per week. This could be a painting, a sculpture, a poem, a chapter of a book, or a sketch, which is what Evan was working on when Cole and Ryan opened the door. His brown shaggy hair was covering his face, and Ry knew how focused his light brown eyes were on the page without even seeing them, as the boy didn’t look up. His tanned hands were sailing across the page, dirt (or was it ink?) staining under his fingernails. Cole cleared his throat, and so the other boy looked up; at first, he looked at them blankly, then seemed to remember who they were and closed his sketchbook, pushing himself up from his chair.

“Hey! Let me just grab my stuff...” Evan wiped his hands on his painted-splattered jeans and looked around for the small messenger bag in which he carried some of his art supplies and money in. Ry saw it by the door and picked it up.

“Got it,” he announced, and Evan thanked him, swung the bag over his shoulder, and led them down the stairs.

They were on the last step of the grand staircase when Ryan’s eyes landed on the subject in the middle of the room. The students painting Leigh had apparently finished their portraits and started on the next lesson, because the girl was now completely naked, the fur throw having been replaced by a white silk that laid gracefully across her lap to save that part of her dignity. Ry swallowed, and exchanged a look with Evan, because it had to be done (a quick moment of eye contact that said ‘what have we walked into’), then looked back at Leigh. It was hard for Ry to keep his eyes up, but he managed, and respected her privacy as he had before. Then she looked directly at him and allowed her lips to be drawn into a sly smile. He stood there, confused and unknowing, and jumped when Cole grabbed his shoulder again to steer him out. Leigh’s mouth returned to its passive look, but she winked at him, dark eyes inviting him to have a look. Luckily, Cole yanked him out of the house before he could accept that invitation.

While they were inside, the sun had hidden itself behind the clouds.

“We should roll up the roof,” Evan mumbled, starting towards the car, and Cole nodded, following. But Ryan stayed at the door, looking up at the sky, rubbing his arms to keep the goosebumps down, though they weren’t from the weather. He could feel it in the air, in his bones.

Something was coming. Something big.

#writing #themanor #thriller #mystery #fiction #romance #ocs